ERIC Number: EJ1104022
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2016
Pages: 21
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-0142-5692
EISSN: N/A
White Working-Class Male Narratives of "Loyalty to Self" in Discourses of Aspiration
Stahl, Garth
British Journal of Sociology of Education, v37 n5 p663-683 2016
This paper intends to show the processes and identity negotiations of white working-class boys surrounding their own learner-identity within a "raising aspirations" rhetoric. The current dominant neoliberal discourse, which prioritizes a view of aspiration that is competitive, economic, and status-based, shapes the subjectivities of these young males. Focusing on the deeply engrained values of a group of 23 working-class boys from South London, ages 14-16, this research critically considers the conception of aspiration and persistent "educational underachievement". White working-class boys in the United Kingdom are frequently labelled as having "low aspirations" or, indeed, no aspirations at all. Through the use of habitus as a conceptual tool, the research intends to serve as an exploration of how the aspiration rhetoric influenced the boys' conception of "loyalty to self" and their sense of average-ness/ordinariness/"middling". The boys' habitus undergoes complex "identity work" in order to reconcile competing and contrasting conceptions of aspiration.
Descriptors: Foreign Countries, Secondary School Students, White Students, Males, Working Class, Adolescents, Aspiration, Personal Narratives, Discourse Analysis, Neoliberalism, Values, Low Achievement, Self Concept, Ethnography, Semi Structured Interviews, Focus Groups, Observation, Educational Policy, Identification (Psychology)
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Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Research
Education Level: Secondary Education
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Identifiers - Location: United Kingdom; United Kingdom (London)
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A